Public Private Partnership and Outsourcing Program for Finnish Defense

Defense industry

The Finnish Ministry of Defense initiated a significant partnership program to improve the productivity of the Finnish Defense Forces and to create an environment whereby the Defense Forces can better focus on their core functions.

Objectives of the project

The Finnish Ministry of Defense initiated a significant partnership program to improve the productivity of the Finnish Defense Forces and to create an environment whereby the Defense Forces can better focus on its core functions. The goal was to cut costs and make operations more flexible by reorganizing the support functions or outsourcing them to selected partners. The partnership program started in 2001 and was completed by 2007. The program was owned by the Ministry of Defense and the Defense Command was responsible for its execution.

The partnership program included development of seven different support functions:

Catering services

Garment services

Finance and HR operations

Healthcare services

Maintenance functions

Transportation services

IT services

BearingPoint assisted the client in setting the future state of the program as well as to prepare the program plan. The client also requested BearingPoint to evaluate all the pre-studies and make recommendations for future actions regarding the whole partnership program.

Measurable & concrete results

Finnish Defense Forces reached the goals of the partnership program in terms of reorganizing the support function that were assisted by BearingPoint.

Results of the program include:

Catering services:

Change in operating model: 95% of the functions were successfully transferred to the formed in-house service centre, 5 % were outsourced

Garment services:

Partial change in operating model: one of the operating units was outsourced as planned and two units remained within the Defense Forces

Finance and HR operations:

Change in operating model: all of the functions were successfully transferred to the newly-formed in-house service center

Healthcare services:

Change in operating model: specialized medical care was outsourced while local health care remained in the garnisons as planned